Update...

Sorry I haven't been around for awhile, Sadie is definitely a handful!

She has been adjusting well. Two nights ago, and last night she slept from around 11pm to 6am. I am so proud of her and it's definitely a drastic change from getting up every 20 minutes to 1 hour the first night!

She's having trouble being on her own though, which we definitely expected. We started putting her in her x-pen and leaving her until she stops howling (it takes around a half hour) when our landlord isn't home, he lives downstairs. I am nervous to leave her all my herself tomorrow (tomorrow both OH and I have to go back to work) We have radios, kongs, everything it says to have for a dog to keep herself occupied, but I know she's still going to cry and it's going to break my heart. I just hope she doesn't cry all day - I definitely don't want the landlord to rethink letting us have her.

I'm also a little nervous I might be a little allergic to her! :yikes I don't think I am, but who knows. My eye was swollen almost shut last night. It started around 10pm and was soo strange! I took some benadryl and kept a hot compress on it, but it's still a little swollen this morning. I would think that the benadryl would have made it go away completely if I was allergic to her, but we'll see!

Tucker, my cat, is living with Sadie relatively quietly. He just keeps looking at her then looking at us almost wanting to say "what is this thing? why is it so small?" He's let her come up to him, but that's about it. His paw comes up to swat her when she starts to be pushy, but he's never hit her which makes me incredibly happy. The funny this is - he'll get up to run away from her and she'll think it's a game. It ends up with the cat on top of the coffee table trapped by this 4 pound puppy on the floor!


Sorry it's so long! I have to go read and catch up with everyone else now!

Well she is just a little doll!! :lotsaluv: :wggle: :fool:

It sounds as though Sadie is settling in nicely. Good luck tomorrow going back to work!

I hope and pray for your sake that you are not allergic. I can identify because I was soooo afraid that I or one of my family would be allergic to Daisy. I grew up with dogs and was never allergic to them, but they were poodles, a low-dander breed. I had cats (outside) all my childhood, but then suddenly at the age of about 15, I developed an allergy to them! I would break out in hives along my jawline and cheeks, and my eyes would swell and get this weird thing where it looked like the cornea came detached from my eye! It would have kind of like a wrinkle in the inner corner of my eye! Gross and scary!

It broke my heart to not be around my sweet Rascal as much. And he was VERY attached to me, too, more like a dog, really. He used to lay on my chest and rest his chin on my chin and fall asleep, looking into my eyes. He followed me around everywhere. I eventually found that if I petted him very briefly, and then rushed in the house and washed my hands very thoroughly, and never touched my face in the meantime, I was usually OK. However, if I am in a house where there are inside cats, I get very short of breath and have to leave.

I had a hamster later (in college) that I eventually had to give away because I found out I was allergic. Whenever I would clean his cage, I would feel like my lungs were filling with water! I didn't put 2 and 2 together that it was him that was making me react that way. I went to the doctor and he did a breath test and said I had the lung capacity of an 80 year old woman and that I HAD to get rid of my hamster!

The first couple of weeks that we had Daisy (we got her in July), I was hyper-aware of my reaction to her and I would feel my skin around my jaw tingling after I cuddled with her. It scared me to death! I think it was psychosomatic, because I was so paranoid that I would have a reaction to her. All is fine, now, though, thank Goodness!

I also worried about my son, who has seasonal-type allergies and sometimes has asthma symptoms when he gets a respiratory infection. He had never been around dogs for any extended period, but never showed any problem when he petted other people's dogs. But it's all been good -- again, thank Goodness!

So I feel for you and wish you the best! It sounds like she's doing great and she's a real cutie! I have heard some people say they "outgrow" certain allergies, so if you do have a problem, maybe you could just be really careful about washing your hands and not touching your eyes, and eventually you will become desensitized.

Oh Tara Im so glad everything is going well. Im not sure what to say about the allergy thing so Im just going to cross my fingers and hope its just a one time thing. She is a doll though and Im so happy for you

In the case you might be allergic... (we have all sorts of stuff here because I sometimes am midly allergic... it just ranges from breed to breed and so far I have been fine with every cavie I have been around)

You can take Claritin (or Claritin D for sinus allergies) every day depending on your severity... meaning you can skip or take and it still works even if you skip.

Also... there is some really great stuff out there called Allerpet D. I have a friend who is severly allergic to dogs and she has two cockerspaniels... she puts the allerpet on them per the directions and has NO allergies or problems.

Either of these might work for you as well. I know that we are putting Allerpet D on Cicero as a precautionary measure... and I have dedicated to vacuuming at least every day, if not every other to keep down on the allergens.

Good luck with everything!!

Raven

I'm very happy she's settling in and hopefully you will get the allergy issue sorted out. If you eye swells up again don't do a hot compress...always do a COLD/ICE compress for any sort of allergic swelling. I've had allergies since I was a child (luckly not allergic to dogs) and the allergist always says put cold/ice on the spot where I get my allergy injections because it calms the irritated tissue and helps reduce the swelling. I've only had a swollen eye once and I put ice on it and it worked nicely. The only type of wound you should be putting a hot compress on is a boil or infected sore that needs to drain.

Good luck!

Well I'm at work, and my previous swollen eye is back to normal. Now my left eye is starting to swell up. It's like a bump right in the middle of my eye, as well as the outer corner swelling. I'm nowhere near the dog and the dog hasn't been around anything I have with me. It's the strangest thing, maybe it could be conjunctivitis. I'm not sure if I should wait it out a day or two or go and see a doctor.

Weird stuff.

My friend Heather had the same thing happen to her 3 times last year. She's not normally allergic to anything but one day she was at work and out of the blue one of her eyes swelled shut within a period of about 30 minutes. She went to the doctor and they went over everything she could have touched or come in contact with that day that could have caused it and they couldn't figure it out. She took a Benadryl and the swelling went away by the next day, but it was still very disturbing. She said the white of her eye was even swollen up. It happened twice again after that within a 2 month period and has never happened again. She ALWAYS keeps Benadryl in her purse now in case she gets the feeling that it's going to swell again.

If I were you I would call your doctor and go in for a visit asap if you can while the swelling is still there. I didn't think conjunctivitis involved swelling, but the doctor will know best.

I hope you feel better soon!